Ten Years

The past two days have been a bittersweet one for me. I spent them in Jakarta, visiting our flower customers to tell them that we'll be doing our last delivery in June-July ish. After 10 long years, we have arrived on this day. I'm feeling pretty mixed up about this.

Feeling mixed up because although I know that we're just going to switch the farm into something else, I feel sentimental looking back on our journey in these past 10 years. How we started small, how we expanded, and then COVID came and here we are today.

While I know that I'm not the one who started this business, it's bittersweet to part with something you've been taking care of and handling in the past decade. All the hard work, good and bad memories. To be frank I don't know if I've done a great job or not. I hope I did. 

But at least I'm glad that we closed this chapter on our own terms. We're not being forced to close it, nor are we bankrupt or something. Just a tiny virus that changed the course of human history and our lives. Including ours, and the flower farm. I guess it's just life in its purest unpredictability. 

I guess we'll just have to move on from here. There's another chapter to write next. I don't know how life will unravel itself to us next. At the end of the day we'll just have to move forward. There's not use in staying in the same spot. Life goes on whether we like it or not. Simple as that.

Also I've fulfilled another promise yesterday.

I visited Pa Irwan again, although now at his grave. I did tell myself that I will visit him one day. And now I guess it's the right time to do so. To also inform him that after all these years, we're going to do our last delivery soon. Something we weren't expecting years ago.

Couldn't help but cried, thinking and looking back on our good old days. I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing that he's not here with us to see this chapter come to a close. After all he's been there since the beginning. And now I have to tell him this news, in this way.

It's been a bittersweet 2 days and I'm still processing my feelings. I often wondered why I always land myself in unexpected places. Who could have thought that I would manage a flower farm after poly. And I wonder what's the purpose of the universe putting this 10-year chapter into my life. I just know that  I have learned a few things from this chapter. About life, about leading a business, about people. 

And most of all: 

how you cannot stop a flower from blooming.